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What's new

Here we keep you up-to-date with all of recent news 

What’s new?

Customer Services update

 Press releases

Events schedule

Over 50,000 researchers now registered with British Library Direct 

We are pleased to announce that, after only 3 years in service, 50,000 users have signed up to our free-to-search interface British Library Direct.

Barry Smith, Head of Sales and Marketing, Information Services commented: "British Library Direct has been a real success story over the last 3 years. As well as attracting a large number of users, it has also allowed us to reach regions that we have never had visibility in before. The British Library’s collection is a global one and now, largely due to British Library Direct, so are our users”.  

British Library Direct offers pay-as-you-go access to articles from the top 20,000 international research journals, in fields ranging from aeronautics to agriculture, from pharmacy to law. Upon finding a relevant article, the user can then order it online and pay by credit card. There is no need to subscribe in order to use the service and articles can be ordered singly or several at a time. Nearly 20% of the articles can be downloaded instantly.

OCLC establishes link to British Library through WorldCat interface

New linking facility enables OCLC WorldCat users around the world to order from the British Library through a new ‘Get It’ link.

OCLC WorldCat searchers around the world can now order from the British Library’s document supply collection, via a new linking arrangement to British Library Direct, the new credit card ordering platform from the British Library.

OCLC WorldCat users can search for an article on the WorldCat system, then order full text with a credit card, if it is available from the British Library and they have not found it in their own library holdings.

“Part of our recent strategy has been to make our largely unique collection more visible through the popular search and order routes and OCLC WorldCat certainly fits that mould. This new linking arrangement makes it easier for WorldCat users to identify documents in our collection and order them with a credit card. They will even be able to download some documents immediately from our secure servers”, commented Mat Pfleger, Head of Sales and Marketing at the British Library.

British Library Direct Plus: basic version goes live

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new discovery database that provides access to article details from over 67,000 journals and over 400,000 conference proceedings in our collection, many of which are available to search electronically for the first time. This subscription-based service allows you to identify articles from the British Library, Google Scholar and Pubmed Central and then order available full text through the British Library Document Supply Service quickly and easily. If you would like further information or a free trial, email us at marketing@bl.uk.

Coming in early 2008 - An Advanced Version of British Library Direct Plus will allow customers to build their own library of searchable resources, including websites, full text subscriptions and e-journals.

Email us at marketing@bl.uk for further information.

 Emerald announces digitisation of complete archive

The British Library is working with Emerald Group Publishing to digitise the full archive of their journal titles in the areas of business, management, library and information services, materials science and engineering. More than 50,000 articles from over 120 journals are to be digitised into PDF format and made available electronically for the first time. Entitled Emerald Backfiles, the electronic archive is due for release in early 2008.

Further information can be found at Emerald's Insight website or view the Press release.

 National libraries join forces on bibliographic standard

Four national libraries have joined forces to implement a new bibliographic standard for describing and accessing library resources that is designed for the digital environment in which libraries now operate.

The British Library, the National Library of Australia, the Library of Congress, and Library and Archives Canada have agreed on the coordinated implementation of Resource Description and Access (RDA), the successor to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules.

These national libraries, together with representatives from professional library associations in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States are represented on the Committee of Principals that oversees the work of the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA, the group responsible for developing the guidelines.

 Move to electronic invoices

If you have a British Library account, why not help us reduce our impact on the environment by receiving your invoices and statements electronically. The benefits of e-invoices are:

  • Quicker delivery - All invoices are sent as a PDF and all statements as an Excel spreadsheet
  • Easier to circulate - Forward them to colleagues quickly and easily by email

To start receiving your forms electronically, all you need to do is fill in this simple form and we'll do the rest. You can see an example of your electronic invoice (PDF) and your statement (PDF).

If you would like more information or have any questions about e-invoices, please email customer-services-accounts@bl.uk or call +44 (0)1937 546060

Notice of change to electronic copy service in Germany

On 1 January 2008 revisions to the German Copyright Act came into force. As a result of these revisions, the British Library will no longer be able to deliver Library Privilege Service copies via our Secure Electronic Delivery (SED) or Ariel® services. Any items requested through this service are now restricted to Fax or Mail delivery only.   

To ensure compliance with this revised legislation, from 1 April 2008 the Copyright Fee Paid Service will become the default method of supply for all orders requesting SED or Ariel® delivery.  Publication specific copyright fees will be added to the charge for the copy and included on your monthly invoice. You will be able to identify these requests on your monthly statement by the prefix MZ in front of the request number. Please check current copyright fees. 

If you wish to change your current delivery method to Fax, please register for this service by contacting Customer Services with your fax number. 

T: + 44 1937 546060
E:  customer-services@bl.uk

Coming soon from the British Library and UK Higher Education – EThOS  

The British Library will shortly be acting as the central hub for a system which offers access to all UK doctoral theses in electronic form. The Electronic Theses Online System (EThOS) has been developed by the EThOS partnership, comprising several UK Higher Education Institutions and the British Library with funding from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), Research Libraries UK (RLUK) and the partners. 

The system will harvest UK doctoral e-theses from Institutional Repositories and will digitise paper theses to be delivered through a single web interface. 

The system is to be launched during September 2008.

It will offer online access to the full text of UK doctoral theses for download to the desktop. Increasingly there is demand for electronic copies of theses and EThOS  meets this demand and provides a coherent and consistent interface via a one stop electronic shop. 

It is expected that the majority of the theses will be available on Open Access - that is free of charge to the end user as a result of UK HE’s support for the Open Access initiative. 

The existing British Theses service will continue until the end of July 2008. From that time until the launch of EThOS in September, only UK theses already held by the BL will be available. 

From the launch of EThOS: 

  • All theses requests for UK doctoral theses must be made through EThOS. No other requesting methods can be used.
  • It will not be possible to provide microfilmed UK doctoral theses but other supply options will be available – electronic download, paper (both bound and loose leaf), CD and DVD.
  • For non electronic copies a charge will be made. 

Full details will be announced prior to the launch. Please ensure all colleagues involved in requesting UK theses are informed of these changes. For further information please access www.ethos.ac.uk. 

 ILL Claims 

If you email your ILL claims to us please check that you are sending them to the correct address. All claims should be sent to Customer-Services-Accounts@bl.uk.

We recently discovered that a number of you were sending your claims to dsc-account-enquiries@bl.uk - an email address no longer in use. If you have not received an email acknowledgement in response to a claim, and wish us to check if it was received, please telephone Customer Services Accounts on 01937 546655.

Returning items to us 

The British Museum has recently contacted us to let us know that they regularly receive substantial quantities of British Library mail incorrectly addressed to them. In addition to creating extra work for staff in their post room, additional costs and unnecessary delays are incurred. To ensure safe delivery of items please ensure that they are correctly addressed to either our Boston Spa or London address. For your convenience a return address label is enclosed with all Document Supply collection loans.

Recycling of Document Supply packaging 

We are aware that many of you reuse the padded envelopes documents are supplied in and are pleased to see our packaging is being recycled. However, we would ask that when using British Library branded envelopes for purposes other than returning items to us, please could you ensure that the destination address and your return address are clearly marked. In addition to eBay sales, amongst items recently incorrectly delivered to us was a partially eaten ready meal -allegedly containing a splinter of wood!

Price changes – a reminder 

Full details of revised Document Supply prices applicable from 1 August 2008 can be found on our pricing pages.  

Full list of online catalogues